Ministry of Industry and Information Technology: Interim Measures for the Management of Number Portability Services have been drafted

The State Council Information Office held a press conference at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, inviting Xin Guobin, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, Huang Libin, Director of the Operation Monitoring and Coordination Bureau and Spokesperson, and Wen Ku, Director of the Information and Communications Development Department and Spokesperson, to introduce the development of the industrial communications industry in the first half of 2019 and answer questions from reporters.

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China Daily:

I have two questions for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The State Council Executive Meeting made it clear that "number portability" should be fully implemented nationwide by the end of November. What is the current progress? What measures will be taken next to ensure smooth implementation?

Wenku:

"Number Portability" is a popular project that has attracted great attention from the whole society and is an important measure to make information and communication services better benefit the people. In order to implement the "Number Portability" work, after the "Two Sessions" this year, we immediately organized three basic telecommunications companies and China Tower Corporation to formulate a "three-stage" work schedule for system construction and transformation, joint debugging and testing, and service provision, and deployed it to promote the "Number Portability" work across the country. At present, all work is being promoted in an orderly manner, and the five pilot provinces and cities have completed the number portability work of 2.3 million users.

For a long time, mobile phone numbers have been an important mark for each communication company to provide services to users. Each company has its own number. For example, China Mobile has 139, China Unicom has 186, and China Telecom has 189. After the reform of the telecommunications system, our country's communications market has basically formed a pattern of full competition among three basic telecommunications companies. Each company's products and services have their own characteristics, attracting user groups with different needs to move between networks and change service providers. With the upgrading of mobile communication technology and the rapid development of mobile Internet, mobile phone numbers are no longer just communication user identification, but are widely used in the Internet of all walks of life and become the "identity card" of network operation space. Changing mobile phone numbers by users not only requires high time and economic costs, but may also cause property and safety risks. "Number portability" can resolve these contradictions. Users can choose the operator that provides services to them without changing their numbers. From the perspective of full deployment, we must also properly deal with the two major challenges of huge data volume and wide coverage.

To this end, we need to do two things: First, we need to make necessary changes to the networks and operating systems of the three basic telecommunications companies. As you know, there are nearly 1.6 billion mobile users in our country. Updating the operating systems of 1.6 billion mobile users is a large-scale project that is unprecedented in the world. It requires a lot of complex and detailed work, just like the comparison between climbing Xiangshan Mountain and climbing Mount Everest. So, the gap is very large, and you can see how difficult it is.

Second, it is necessary to carry out synchronous transformation on third-party platforms such as banks, insurance, securities and Internet companies. Mobile phone numbers are widely used in information applications in various industries. To maintain the original applications unaffected, it is necessary for the application systems of various industries to cooperate and ensure the user experience after "number portability".

In order to achieve the goal of enabling users to "carry their number, switch quickly, and use it well", in the next step, we will ensure the smooth implementation of "number portability" from four aspects.

• First, after the national system construction and transformation is completed, a nationwide joint debugging and testing work will be organized to ensure that the system operation meets the standard requirements.
• Second, formulate management measures. At present, the interim measures for the management of the "number portability" service have been drafted and completed, clarifying the service conditions, business processes, service specifications, etc. of "number portability". In the near future, they will be open to the public for comments in accordance with procedures.
• Third, we need to strengthen communication with relevant industry authorities and jointly promote the synchronous transformation of third-party platforms such as banks, insurance companies, securities companies and Internet companies to ensure the user's business experience after "number portability".
• Fourth, organize and carry out supervision and inspection to ensure a healthy and orderly market competition environment.